Re: The Way to Fix MS from Becoming Old
[QUOTE=runningman;943824][...]I was 23 when I joined and was forced to start talking to people. I say make them talk. 100 posts to download anything in the promos and recs section. Then this place will be booming again with new members and new dialog.[/QUOTE]
I understand where you are coming from but this is very unlikely to happen in my opinion. So far this Year, we had the highest registration numbers ever but the amount of registrations hasn't much to do with the amount of participation (sadly). I know that over 90% of the people come here to get their free music in p + r and besides saying Thanks from time to time or to ask for more mixes or track names, they are not interested in much more. And I don't [URL="http://www.mercuryserver.com/forums/djdb.php?id=969"]blame[/URL] them for it. Everything has become so much quicker thanks to Highspeed Broadband flat rates, Facebook, Twitter and Blogs etc. Quick comments, mood updates and social Games are the actual trend and forum usage has decreased a lot. It's a general social development and also noticable on [ms]. I think with the vast amount of information you can get on the Internet these days, the individuals are just less proactive because they already have a hard time to consume the boat load of new information and content that is waiting for them each day on the Web.
Returning to your suggestion, yes we could need more proactive members but posting limits are not the answer. If they would be, we would have a hell of a lot more proactive users by now thanks to our post count restrictions in the past. But we don't. "Thanks the many links" a hundred times per day was the result from post count limits like Jenks has already mentioned.
The WMC abscence on [ms] in 2011 you mentioned is also a good example. In the last Years, I always got PM's or saw threads from people asking to make a subforum for it and saw numerous threads about it in advance and even more during the conference. This year (and also last year partially), interest was quite low - both from people who planned to make a photo documentation and members who asked for information.
I would for example love to see more contributions like the articles that Simon is writing for Mercuryserver. We have a full blogging/article system on Mercuryserver since the last Upgrade and a front page that screams for more and Mercuryserver exclusive articles related to EDM or whatever. Self made content creates more reactions (comments) so it is all up to the people on Mercuryserver. We can provide the platform and make offerings but we need members who are willing to spend the time to create interesting content. Forcing them into something doesn't help here..everything must come at free will and from the heart.